A FEAST AND AN EXCURSION
NINE free hours!--or, to be exact, eight, since the best part of one
would have to be devoted to the flat in order to avoid trouble. However,
Johnnie never did his work any sooner than he actually had to; and that
hour of labor should be, as always, the last of the nine, this for the
sake of obeying Big Tom at the latest possible time, of circumventing
his wishes, and thwarting and outwitting him, just to the degree that
safety permitted.
So! For eight hours Johnnie would live his dreams. And, oh, the things
he could do! the things!
But before he could begin the real business of the day, he had to put
Grandpa to sleep again. This was best accomplished through tiring the
little old man with a long, exciting train trip. "Oo, Grandpa!" cried
Johnnie. "Who wants to go ride-ride on the cars?"
"Cars! cars! cars!" shrilled Grandpa, his white-lashed, milky-blue eyes
dancing. At once, impatiently, he fell to tapping on the floor with his
cane, while, using his other hand, he swung the wheel chair in a circle.
Across his shrunken chest, from one side of the chair to the other, was
a strand of rope that kept him from tumbling out of his seat. To hasten
the promised departure, he began to throw his weight alternately against
the rope and the back of the chair, like an excited baby.
"Wait now!" admonished Johnnie. He took off his apron and wadded it into
a ball. Then with force and fervor he sent the ball whizzing under the
sink. "Where'll we go?" he cried. The bottoms of his trouser legs hung
about his knees in a fringe. Now as he did another hop-skip into the
air, not so much because of animal spirits as through sheer mental
relief, all that fringe whipped and snapped. "Pick out a place,
Grandpa!" he bade. "Where do y' want t' go?"
"Go! go! go!" chanted the old man. Not so long ago he had been able to
call up a score of destinations--most of them names that had to do with
the Civil War campaigns which, in the end, had impaired his brain and
cost him the use of his legs.
Johnnie proceeded to prompt. "Gettysburg?" he asked; "Shiloh?
Chick'mauga? City of Washingt'n? Niaggery Falls?"
"Niaggery Falls!" cried Grandpa, catching, as he always did, at whatever
point was named last. "Where's my hat? Where's my hat?"
He never remembered how to find his hat, though it always hung
conveniently on the back of the wheel chair. It was the dark,
broad-brimmed, cord-encircled head covering of the Grand Army man. As he
turned his head in a worried search for it, Johnnie set the hat atop the
white hair.
Johnnie had named Niagara last because he liked best to visit that
Wonder of Nature. He did not know why--except that the name seemed
curiously familiar to him. It was familiar to Grandpa, too, in a dim
way, for he had visited "the Falls" on his wedding trip. And every
repetition of the imaginary journey thrilled him.
"Chug! chug! chug!" he began, the moment he felt the hat. His imitation
of a starting engine was so genuine that it shook his spare frame from
his head to his slippered feet. "Chug! chug! chug!"
But Johnnie was not ready to set off. The little, old soldier had not
yet eaten his breakfast, and if he did not eat he would not go to sleep
promptly at the conclusion of the trip, nor stay asleep.
"Oh, Grandpa," began the boy coaxingly, as he hastily dished up a saucer
of oatmeal, another saucer of prunes, and poured a glass of milk,
"before we start we got t' eat our grand banquet! It's a long way to
Niaggery, y' know. So here we both are at the Grand Central Station!"
(The Station was situated on or about the center of the kitchen.)
"Station!" echoed Grandpa. "Chug! chug! chug!"
"No, Grandpa,"--Johnnie's manner of handling the old man was comically
mature, almost motherly; his tone, while soothing, was quietly firm, as
if he were speaking to a younger child. "See! Here's the fine table!"
Up to this table, still strewn with unwashed dishes and whatever
remained of breakfast, the pair of travelers drew. Then Johnnie, with
the air and the lavishness of a millionaire, ordered an elaborate and
tasty breakfast from a waiter the like of whom was not to be found
anywhere save in his own imagination.
This waiter's name was Buckle, and he had served Johnnie faithfully for
the past several years. In all ways he was an extraordinary person of
his kind, being able to furnish anything that Grandpa and Johnnie might
call for, whether meat, vegetable or fruit, at any time of the year,
this without regard to such small matters as seasons, the difficulties
of importing, adverse hunting laws, and the like. Which meant that
Grandpa could always have his venison, and Johnnie his choice of
fruits--all from the deft hand of a man quick and soft-footed, and full
of low bows, who wore a suit of red velvet fairly loaded with gold bands
and brass buttons.
"Mister Buckle," began Johnnie (for such an august creature in red
velvet could not be addressed save with a courteous title), "a turkey,
please, an' some lemon pie, an' some strawberry ice cream an' fifteen
pounds of your best candy."
"Candy! candy! candy!" clamored Grandpa, impatiently beating on the
table with his spoon like a baby.
Buckle was wonderful. As Johnnie's orders swept him hither and thither,
how he transformed the place, laying down the articles called for upon a
crisp red tablecloth that was a glorious full brother to one that
belonged to the little Jewish lady who lived upstairs. But Grandpa took
little interest in Buckle, though he picked eagerly enough at the viands
which Johnnie urged upon him.
"Here's your turkey," pointed out the boy, giving the old man his first
spoonful of cereal. "My goodness, did y' ever _see_ such a drumstick!
Now another!--'cause, gee! you'll be starved 'fore ever we git t'
Niaggery! Mm! but ain't that turkey fine?"
"Mm! Mm!" agreed the veteran.
"Mister Buckle, I'll take some soda and some popcorn," went on Johnnie,
spooning out his own saucer of oatmeal. "And some apples and oranges,
and bananas and cherries and grapes."
Fruit was what he always ordered. How almost terribly at times he
yearned for it! For the only fruit that ever Barber brought home was
prunes. Johnnie washed them and put them over the fire to boil with a
regularity due to his fear of the strap. But he hated them. (Likewise he
pitied them--because they seemed such little, old creatures, and grew in
that shriveled way which reminded him somehow of Grandpa.) What he
longed for was fresh fruit, which he got only at long intervals, this
when Cis carried home to him a few cherries in the bottom of a paper
bag, or part of an apple which was generously specked, and so well on
its way to ruin, or shared the half of a lemon, which the two sucked,
turn about, all such being the gifts of a certain old gentleman with a
wooden leg who carried on a thriving trade in the vicinity of the
nearest public school. But the periods between the contributions were so
long, and the amount of fruit consumed was so small, that Johnnie was
never even a quarter satisfied--except at one of his Barmecide feasts.
Grandpa's oatmeal and milk finished, Johnnie urged the prunes upon him.
"Oo, lookee at the watermelon!" he cried. "The dandy, big
watermelon!--_on ice_!"
The mere word "watermelon" always stirred a memory in old Grandpa's
brain, as if he could almost recall when he, a young soldier of the
North, had taken his fill of sweet, black-seeded, carnation-tinted pulp
at some plantation in the harried South. And now he ate greedily till
the last prune was gone, when Johnnie had Buckle throw all of the green
rinds into the sink. (It was this attention to detail which invested his
games with reality.) Then, the repast finished, Grandpa fretted to be
away, whirling his chair and whimpering.
Johnnie had eaten through a perfect menu only as an unfillable boy can.
So he dismissed Buckle with a thousand-dollar bill, and the two
travelers were off, Johnnie making a great deal of jolly noise as he
fulfilled the duties of engineer, engine and conductor, Grandpa having
nothing to do but be an appreciative passenger.
To the old man the dish cupboard, which was Carthage, in "York State,"
never lost its interest, he having lived in that town long years ago,
before he marched out of it with a company of men who were bound for the
War. But the morris chair with its greasy cushions, which was the
capital, Albany, and the cookstove, which was very properly Pittsburgh
(though the surface of the earth had to be wrenched about in order to
put Pittsburgh after Albany on the way to "the Falls"), both of these
estimable cities also won their share of attention, the special train
bearing the pair making a stop at each, though the passengers, boy and
man, longed quite naturally for a sight of the Marvel of Waters which
awaited them at the end of the line.
But Pittsburgh left behind, and Buffalo (the woodbox) all but grinding
under their wheels, neither Grandpa nor Johnnie could withstand longer
the temptation to push forward to wonderful Niagara itself. With loud
hissings, toot-toots, and guttural announcements on the part of the
conductor, the wheel chair drew up with a twisting flourish--at the
sink.
And now came the most exciting moment of all. For here imagination had
to be called upon least. This Niagara was liquid. And held back its vast
flood--or poured it--just as Johnnie chose. He proceeded to have it
pour. With Grandpa's cane, he rapped peremptorily twice--then once--on
the big lead pipe which, leading through the ceiling as a vent to Mrs.
Kukor's sink, debouched in turn into the Barber sink.
A moment's wait. Then some one began to cross the floor overhead with an
astonishing sound of rocking yet with little advance--in the way that a
walking doll goes forward. This was Mrs. Kukor herself, who was
motherhood incarnate to Johnnie; motherhood boiled down into an
unalloyed lump; the pure essence of it in a fat, round package. The
little Jewish lady never objected to this regular morning interruption
of her work. And so the next moment, the miracle happened. Lake Erie
began to empty itself; and with splashes, gurgles and spurts, the
cataract descended upon the pots and pans heaped in the Barber sink.
The downpour was greeted by a treble chorus of delight from the
tourists. "Oh, Grandpa!" cried Johnnie, jumping up and down. "Ain't it
fine! Ain't it fine!" And "Fine!" chimed in the old man, swaying himself
against his breast rope. "Fine! Fine!"
One long half-minute Niagara poured--before the admiring gaze of the two
in the special. Then the great stream became dammed, the rush of its
waters ceased, except for a weak trickle, and the ceiling gave down the
sound of a rocking step bound away, followed by the squeaking of a
chair. Mrs. Kukor was back at work.
The train returned silently to Pittsburgh, the Grand Army hat was taken
off and hung in its place, the blanket was pulled up about Grandpa's
shoulders, and this one of the pair of travelers was left to take his
rest. Comfortable and swift as the whole journey was, nevertheless the
feeble, old soldier was tired. His pale blue eyes were roving wearily;
the chair at a standstill, down came their lids, and his head tipped
sidewise.
He looked as much like a small, gray monkey as his strapping son
resembled a gorilla. As Johnnie tucked the blanket about the thin old
neck, Grandpa was already breathing regularly, the while he made the
facial grimaces of a new-born child.